Part 88: 1952
MOVIES:
An American in Paris (winner)
A Streetcar Named Desire (hidden gem)
A Place in the Sun
Decision Before Dawn
Quo Vadis
An American in Paris
Director: Vincente Minnelli
Starring: Gene Kelly, Leslie Caron, Oscar Levant, Georges Guetary, Nina Foch, Eugene Borden, Noel Neill, Benny Carter, Judy Landon
Oscar Wins: Best Writing (Story and Screenplay), Best Cinematography (Color), Best Art Direction (Color), Best Music (Scoring of a Musical Picture), Best Costume Design (Color), Best Picture
Other Nominations: Best Film Editing, Best Director
Let’s play “Guess the Movie!”: In the early 1950s, Gene Kelly starred in a blockbuster film where he broke off his convenient romance with a predatory older blonde to follow his heart to a younger, more innocent brunette. He sang and danced along the way, as Gene Kelly was known to do, all while being counseled by his best friend who also offered perfect comedic timing to an otherwise straightforward love story.
If you picked Singin’ in the Rain, you’re right! Yay! If you picked An American in Paris, you’re also right! Yay!
Perhaps one of the best things that can be said about An American in Paris is that it led directly to the production of Singin’ in the Rain. Without the former, there may not have been the latter. And while they both have pretty much the EXACT SAME PLOT, An American in Paris was way more successful at the time, earning 8 Oscar nominations (winning 2) and securing a spot as one of the highest grossing films of 1951.
Singin’ in the Rain, on the other hand, barely made a dent. It only received 2 Oscar nods (Best Supporting Actress and Musical Score) and didn’t win either one. Yet, time has been kinder to this film. Now almost always in the top 10 lists of the Greatest Films of All Time, Singin’ in the Rain has earned iconic status while An American in Paris is rarely even mentioned in the same conversation. Why?
From a technical standpoint, An American in Paris is a moving piece of art. It’s a cinematic ballet, complete with bold colors, flashy set pieces, stunning costume design, and – of course – beautiful choreography…but that’s about it. Singin’ in the Rain offered all of that plus a meatier story that was, above all else, actually pretty funny. As the musical movie genre lost its footing after the 1960s, audiences could still find something to like about the interesting plot of Singin’ in the Rain…but when you take the singing and dancing out of An American in Paris, you’re left looking like a tourist in the middle of the Louvre.
An American in Paris is essentially a clothesline on which to hang recycled Gershwin songs. Any plot device acts as a method to just move us along to the next song and dance number which, in the land of movie musicals, isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The first of these devices is one of my favorites – Jerry Mulligan (Gene Kelly) navigating his Rube Goldberg apartment in a choreographed dance not only set to music, but against the small confines of where Jerry lives.
As a struggling artist living in Paris, Jerry has no money. He can’t afford a decent meal, he’s never actually sold one of his paintings, yet he’s never been happier in his entire life. Surrounded by other creatives looking for a break, including a concert pianist named Adam Cook (Oscar Levant) and a singer named Henri Baurel (Georges Guetary), Jerry does his best to dance away any troubles brought on by not being able to afford rent or food.
Jerry catches a break when his work attracts the attention of the wealthy benefactor Milo (Nina Foch), who decides to champion the art and, more importantly, the artist. Jerry is grateful to her but not romantically interested…his heart is saved for a young sprite named Lise (Leslie Caron) who, unfortunately for Jerry, is currently engaged to his friend, Henri.
Of course, the whole reason we’re even here watching this film comes about 96 minutes into it – the “American in Paris” Ballet. This near-20-minute scene is a masterclass in performance and virtually tells the whole movie over again in ballet form. Using the beloved Gershwin concerto as its motivation, this ballet includes a wide scope of choreography techniques from Kelly’s grab bag – including classical ballet, tap, jazz, even some can-can thrown in for good measure.
In the grand lineup of classic Hollywood musicals, An American in Paris isn’t the best, but it’s far from the worst. Most of the people who love it have a love of the genre that helps forgive the fact that this movie doesn’t really have a plot, or an ending, or a point, other than to showcase a great dancer and an even better musician – and, you know, maybe that’s enough. Much of An American in Paris consists of nothing but paying tribute to the joy that singing and dancing provide us in the moment, and that, in and of itself, is s’wonderful.
A Streetcar Named Desire
Director: Elia Kazan
Starring: Vivien Leigh, Marlon Brando, Kim Hunter, Karl Malden, Rudy Bond, Peg Hillias, Nick Dennis, Wright King, Edna Thomas, Ann Dere, Richard Garrick, Lyle Latell, Mickey Kuhn
Oscar Wins: Best Actress (Vivien Leigh), Best Supporting Actress (Kim Hunter), Best Supporting Actor (Karl Malden), Best Art Direction (Black and White)
Other Nominations: Best Music (Music Score of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture), Best Director, Best Cinematography (Black and White), Best Costume Design (Black and White), Best Actor (Marlon Brando), Best Writing (Screenplay), Best Sound Recording, Best Picture
At the beginning of A Streetcar Named Desire, a bewildered and highly-strung woman arrives in New Orleans, intending to stay with her sister and brother-in-law. She tells a kind stranger that she is supposed to get on the streetcar named “Desire” – headed for Desire Street. She must then change to a streetcar named “Cemeteries” before arriving at Elysian Fields Ave, her final destination.
The metaphorical progression of desire, death, and heaven is obvious, but heaven is not where Blanche DuBois (Vivian Leigh) is meant to wind up.
From the moment she gets off the train, Blanche seems like a woman one step away from a nervous breakdown. A brittle and highly strung southern belle, Blanche has arrived in New Orleans seeking a safe haven with her married sister, Stella (Kim Hunter). She confesses to Stella that she suffered many personal losses back home, including losing her house and much of her wealth.
But Stella’s husband, Stanley (Marlon Brando) sees through her act almost immediately. He’s suspicious of her story, as well as her nice dresses and jewelry. By uncovering gossip and rumors about his sister-in-law, he attempts to reveal Blanche’s true motives for running to her sister, an action that eventually drives Blanche to madness.
A common theme that runs through A Streetcar Named Desire is the uncertainty of what is true and what is a lie, culminating in a dramatic ending that leaves us wondering just how much of what we heard was true and how much was simply in Blanche’s head – or even fabricated by Stanley to get full control of his wife. Everyone in this show knows just what to say (or what not to say) to get the upper hand. It’s a real-life game of poker where cards are dealt, played, and lost and relationships are only used to raise the bet.
In this show all about mind games and mind control, casting is everything. The movie spends most of its time in the cramped apartment where Stella and Stanley live – and all the action is driven by how these people interact with each other. The cast here is so tight, so well-trained, that it almost feels like you’re watching them perform on a stage. In fact, most of the cast, including Marlon Brando, Kim Hunter, Karl Malden and the director Elia Kazan, came from the original Broadway production. The only addition was Vivien Leigh, who replaced a then-unknown Jessica Tandy.
And what an addition she was. Leigh steals the film, even from Marlon Brando’s throbbing biceps. Watching her slip not-so-slowly into madness is both mesmerizing and horrifying…and she offers a performance that is the complete juxtaposition to the animalistic Brando – as well as her best-known role, Scarlett O’Hara.
Brando, meanwhile, is nothing short of iconic in his role as Stanley – a character both boyish and conniving, swaggering around his apartment like a pure carnal force of nature. His ability to drive both sisters to the brink in very different ways is honestly quite terrifying and easily secured his place among Hollywood’s most beloved and talented stars.
And while Streetcar will probably go down in history as one of the greatest films of all time – and while Brando’s pleading scream of “STELLLLAAA” will forever be ingrained in our lexicon – the film has some problematic undertones, particularly in the era of the “Me Too” movement. After the movie ended, I couldn’t help but think about how Hollywood would change this movie if it were remade today. Would Stanley be a smoking hot wolf in sheep’s clothing or a fat Joe-6-Pack type with a beer gut and a MAGA hat? Would Stella still go back to him time after time despite how he treats her, or would she employ her friends to bury his body in the desert somewhere? Would Stanley still get the upper hand on Blanche, or would she take matters into her own hands like Carey Mulligan in Promising Young Woman? Would Stella still disregard her sister’s word because of her mental issues, or would she take her hand and run?
While I like to think Hollywood would have the courage to tell the harrowing story like Tennessee Williams intended, I highly doubt it would have even half the impact today that the original did. As it stands, A Streetcar Named Desire has a hard ending, but an important one. It was the story of not just Blanche and Stella, but of so many women who were in abusive relationships, who kept going back upstairs because that man was not only their husband, he was their livelihood. Today’s Stanley may not have been so lucky as Brando’s…and the story would be all the weaker for it.
A Place in the Sun
Director: George Stevens
Starring: Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor, Shelley Winters, Anne Revere, Keefe Brasselle, Fred Clark, Raymond Burr, Herbert Heyes, Shepperd Strudwick, Frieda Inescort, Kathryn Givney, Walter Sande, Ted de Corsia, John Ridgely, Douglas Spencer, Lois Chartrand, Paul Frees
Oscar Wins: Best Costume Design (Black and White), Best Music (Music Score of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture), Best Director, Best Writing (Screenplay), Best Cinematography (Black and White), Best Film Editing
Other Nominations: Best Actor (Montgomery Clift), Best Actress (Shelley Winters), Best Picture
When A Place in the Sun was released in 1951, Charlie Chaplin said it was “…the greatest film ever made about America”…which he didn’t intend as a compliment.
Based on Theodore Dreiser’s 1925 novel An American Tragedy, A Place in the Sun considers a pointedly American definition of success in which a man abandons morality in favor of fortune. It starred two of the era’s most attractive stars, Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor, in a movie that, despite its romantic surface, doubles as a sordid portrait of 1950s youth culture – a generation that aspired to have it all and was willing to do anything to get there.
The first time we see George Eastman (Clift), he’s walking along a vast highway, pausing for a brief moment to admire a billboard advertising his uncle’s company. It’s a symbolic, larger-than-life testament to all that George wants in life – fame and fortune. He, like so many of his generation, wants the American Dream: a good job, lots of money, and a pretty wife on his arm…but his own lower-class status prevents that from happening. His identity is the very thing that prevents him from attaining what he desires.
But that doesn’t stop George from trying. He eventually secures a job at his uncle’s company working on the assembly line. There, he meets and begins dating Alice (Shelley Winters), a former farmgirl turned factory girl who thinks George’s “Eastman” name will bring her advantages.
All the while, George has his mind on the socialite Angela (Taylor), who he meets at one of his uncle’s dinner parties. Their attraction is instant, and they fall into a passionate affair. But just as George enters into this intoxicating lifestyle with Angela, Alice announces she’s pregnant and, unable to procure an abortion, expects George to marry her.
As his romance with Angela grows, George finds himself quite at home in high society. At the same time, George repeatedly lies to Alice, refusing to marry her – yet still strings her along. His desire that she just “go away” transforms into a murderous impulse when Alice discovers George has been lying to her. Caught in his own web, George is left with a life-changing decision: marry Alice and raise their child together or get rid of Alice – permanently – and pursue life with Angela.
The tragedy in A Place in the Sun is born of the single-minded belief that a man could rise to the top and have it all: wealth, status and, of course, the girl. George’s scenes with Angela are – not ironically – heavenly. Enchanting close-ups and hazy dissolves make their romance feel like an endless summer love, one we want to hold onto forever. His scenes with Alice, on the other hand, are drab and draining, often shot in the dark with weird camera angles where neither of them are the center of the shot. These two relationships grasp the predicament of 1950s America – the decision between a rich life and a moral one.
The draw of Clift and Taylor only heightened the film’s popularity, earning back its budget three times over. This may seem odd, since A Place in the Sun is rarely even mentioned among Hollywood’s classic films…yet it was nominated for 9 Academy Awards, including nominations for Clift and Winters.
Though neither of them won, the acting is among the few qualities that endure about this movie. Many of the taboo plot pieces (unwed pregnancy, abortion, murder, even the suggestion of intercourse) couldn’t even be mentioned by name and had to be skirted around so as to not trigger the sensors. This put the onus on the actors to suggest what could not be said, a task Winters and Clift did particularly well.
Though George is stuck between two worlds, this is not a simple black-and-white cautionary tale. It explores George’s quandary in shades of gray. If we were to put ourselves in George’s shoes and ask ourselves what we would do in his situation, we may surprise ourselves with our answer. If all these true crime podcasts have taught us anything, it’s that we often don’t know what we’re capable of under the right circumstances…and even the strongest among us, the most heart-felt, the most moral, will do almost anything to feel like we beat the game, like we found the secret code to having it all…but everything comes at a price. Perhaps George, in this case, flew a little too close to the sun.
Decision Before Dawn
Director: Anatole Litvak
Starring: Oskar Werner, Richard Basehart, Hans Christian Blech, Gary Merrill, Hildegard Knef, Wilfried Seyferth, Dominique Blanchar, O.E. Hasse, Helene Thimig
Oscar Wins: No wins.
Other Nominations: Best Film Editing, Best Picture
“We closed our eyes and went along, until we found ourselves forced to fight the wrong enemy.”
I’ve come to expect a certain tone and outlook from watching World War II movies based on when they were made. Anything in the 40s or 50s will most likely be a one-sided, pro-American, flag-waving romp. In the 70s, I’d expect something a little more cynical. The 90s or later, we get hyper-realistic action movies that skirt the line between realism and morbid entertainment. But no matter the tone, chances are any WWII movie made in Hollywood is going to focus primarily on “the good guys.”
Few films between 1945 and now have focused on the OTHER side – namely, the Germans. And I’m not talkin’ about them damn Naaht-zees. While most Nazis were German, not all Germans were Nazis…and very few films of that time showcased that.
In fact, one of the first films I’ve seen to show that not all Germans were ruthless killers was Decision Before Dawn, a movie shot on location just five years after the war, set against a country still trying to rebuild. These shots were both heartbreaking and stunning, giving the movie an immediate look of legitimacy. It just sucks that the story was so freaking boring.
It’s the last days of the war and, while an allied victory seems pretty much assured, the Germans still have a little fight left in them. In a last-ditch effort to take Germany down, the allies begin training German POWs as spies, sending them back across enemy lines to work against the Third Reich from the inside.
These spies include “Tiger” (Hans Christian Blech), a cynical old bloke who’s happy to fight for whichever side he thinks is most likely to win…and “Happy” (Oskar Werner), a young idealist who genuinely believes in the allied cause and wants to do his part to end the war.
When word spreads of a German general willing to surrender, Tiger and Happy are sent in to help facilitate. Joined by American Lieutenant Rennich (Richard Basehart), Tiger is tasked with finding the general and negotiating the terms of his surrender. Happy, meanwhile, must locate a German tank division that the allies think may stand in the way of the general’s plans.
For a WWII movie made just five years after the war, Decision Before Dawn has none of the one-sided, flag-waving tones of its siblings. Instead, it actually humanizes the Germans, giving them multiple dimensions and understandable motives. They’re not all blonde haired, blue-eyed villains…some are just good guys stuck in a bad situation. Likewise, the American characters aren’t all heroes, either. Several of them are racist pigs who couldn’t care less if the Germans live or die.
Yet, despite its stunning location photography and humanistic portrayal of these characters, the actual plot leaves a lot to be desired. I don’t know if the actual storyline was confusing or if I’m just at my wits end with WWII movies, but this one just doesn’t hold a candle to the war films that have come after it.
Those of us with an American public education tend to forget that it was the Nazis who waged the war, not necessarily the Germans. A square is always a rectangle, but a rectangle is not always a square kind of thing. Either way, civilian and military alike were affected by this horrible conflict. They all suffered, and they were all blamed. But I think that’s one of the points the film was trying to make. There were some good German men who had no choice but to take part in the war…and who wanted it over just as much as the next guy. Happy was one of them, and his noble yet tragic fate was proof.
Quo Vadis
Director: Mervyn LeRoy
Starring: Robert Taylor, Deborah Kerr, Leo Genn, Peter Ustinov, Patricia Laffan, Finlay Currie, Abraham Sofaer, Marina Berti, Buddy Baer, Felix Aylmer, Nora Swinburne, Ralph Truman, Norman Wooland, Peter Miles, Geoffrey Dunn, Nicholas Hannen, D.A. Clarke-Smith, Rosalie Crutchley, John Ruddock, Arthur Walge, Elspeth March, Strelsa Brown, Alfredo Varelli, Roberto Ottaviano, William Tubbs, Pietro Tordi
Oscar Wins: No wins.
Other Nominations: Best Art Direction (Color), Best Costume Design (Color), Best Supporting Actor (Leo Genn), Best Music (Music Score of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture), Best Supporting Actor (Peter Ustinov), Best Film Editing, Best Cinematography (Color), Best Picture
There’s nothing mid-century Hollywood loved more than an epic…except maybe a swords and sandals biblical epic. These films often had all the same ingredients – 12,000 costumes, a ridiculous budget, a mention – if not a sighting – of Jesus Christ, and usually a run-time averaging between 3 and 4 hours. Over the course of this project, I’ve sat through my fair share of these, so I pretty much knew what to expect when I popped in Quo Vadis.
And, I’m happy to report, this one is just as boring and dull as all the other ones, if not more so.
The story follows Roman Commander Marcus Vinicius (Robert Taylor), who is returning home to Rome after years of galivanting through Europe. At first denied access to Rome, Marcus demands an audience with Emperor Nero (Peter Ustinov), a Falstaffian blow hard who loves nothing more than to hear himself talk, or play flute, or fart or whatever he does all day.
That night, in Nero’s palace, Marcus meets and falls in love with Lygia (Deborah Kerr), a Christian Polish princess turned refugee hostage who lives with her Roman family as an adopted daughter.
At the time, Christianity was still a newer religion. Quo Vadis is set just 30 years after the Crucifixion and the Peter (Finlay Currie)/Paul (Abraham Sofaer) Christian fan base has been steadily growing. Meanwhile, the Roman Empire supporters have been disappearing quicker than my patience for finishing this film. So now poor Marcus is torn between his lifelong devotion to being a hot little military boy for Rome and his love for Lygia and her Christian god.
The rest of the film is filled in with plotlines that hold no interest. There’s a romance that brews between Petronius (Leo Genn) and his slave girl, Eunice (Marina Berti), yet it doesn’t really explain why she’s so obsessed with him – and why the first time we see her, she’s making out with a statue of his face. Emperor Nero, meanwhile, has completely lost his mind and spends his time writing songs about all his murderous and insane ideas.
I will say there are some cool shots in this film, particularly the scenes involving the burning of Rome and people getting eaten by real freaking lions. I was curious how they’d be filmed and was at least a little entertained by how those scenes were choreographed and shot, all without the use of special effects.
But that’s about where the good stuff ends. As our lead, Robert Taylor was so stiff and did nothing to bring emotion to his performance at all. Deborah Kerr was fine, but nothing compared to some of her other performances. The real standout, probably by default, was Peter Ustinov, who’s performance as Nero is so over-the-top theatrical that he steals every scene he’s in, whether he means to or not.
Overall, Quo Vadis never really grabbed me. And, with a 3-hour run-time, that’s a long time not to be grabbed by a movie. The hindsight of Christian dominance over the Western world over the last few centuries also made it difficult to sympathize with the woe-is-me attitude of these characters.
But honestly, Quo Vadis is just plain boring. Aside from the theatrical Ustinov, the rest is just dry as sand. And while you’re bound to have a certain level of campiness with biblical films, movies like Ben Hur prove that it’s possible to pull it off – and still tell a good story. Quo Vadis just left me bored and tired…and didn’t even give me the pleasure of staring at Charlton Heston’s bodacious body for 4 hours!
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